SEO, Social Media & eCommerce Talk @RTMLWise

Breadcrumbs navigation and Google search

Here is another refinement to Google search. Wonder how these guys at Google keep coming up with new stuff! Breadcrumbs navigation on web pages has been there for ages, at least as far as I can remember. If you guys recall it is the navigation trail which we can put on our web pages in addition to other navigation.

Look at the example: Basic Search Help is the landing page or the viewing page and the others are the navigation pages, what you may call the parent pages in the web hierarchy. Some of you must be thinking by now – so what? This stuff has been around since my toddler days. But the difference is this – Google has started using breadcrumbs in their search results. This is what Google has to say about this:

“The information in these new hierarchies come from analyzing destination web pages. For example, if you visit the ProductWiki Spidersapien page, you’ll see a series of similar links at the top, “Home> Toys & Games> Robots.” These are standard navigational tools used throughout the web called “breadcrumbs,” which webmasters frequently show on their sites to help users navigate. By analyzing site breadcrumbs, we’ve been able to improve the search snippet for a small percentage of search results, and we hope to expand in the future.”

The example shown in Google blog looks like this:

Okay fine. Now what? Lots I must say. Google is likely to use breadcrumbs in all their search results and it will be tied to search results. It is therefore advisable to put them in your own web sites. The problem is that we don’t really know what kind of algorithm will stitch up the entire thing. Under the circumstances, discretion is  better part of valor.

There are other advantages in using breadcrumbs on your site. Some web masters have reported lesser bounce rate after implementing breadcrumbs. It also encourages visitors to browse through other pages in the hierarchy. It doesn’t hog much space, it is all text and looks pretty. If all this I not enough incentive, it will now onwards be a useful tool in SEO.

If there are any AdWords users reading this, they will immediately see the potential of breadcrumbs. Your ad, ad group, keywords and landing page can be nicely tied up with breadcrumbs.

Overall, this development needs to be watched carefully. I am sure that many skeletons will fall out of the web cupboard soon. Breadcrumbs have the potential to irreversibly change  the search engine ecosystem.  I for one am betting big on this and will be happy to help guys who want to join the breadcrumbs trail. Drop in a word and I will guide you through the process.  Happy hunting.

Google wave

Invites for Wave were sent to 100000 people by Google on 1^st Oct (or was it 30 Sep). Anyway they were  sent from Melbourne, so you can calculate the time. Why I say this is because technology has made time more complicated. But that’s not the topic of this post.

What is Google Wave?

It is another tool for collaboration. But like other Google tools, this will have a great impact on the social media circuit. Because, Google claims that it will relpace social networking sites like Facebook. And only the other day we were talking about the rise of social media. Whew! Things change so fast out here!!!!!

The core of Google Wave is the wavelet which an initiator can send out to friends and other guys. Once a wavelet is created others in the network or even the world at large can comment upon it in real time. What you see is people collaborating with you in real time. This is a huge upgrade on existing social media where you cannot communicate in real time.

The popularity of Google Wave can be seen from the fact that invites for it are already being auctioned on EBay for as much as $5000. But I would not recommend anyone to buy an invite. Not just now. The creators of wave have already announced that it is a beta. That means it still has some rough edges to be smoothened out. It is like the good old days of gmail- People begging around for invites. I suppose Google loves a bit of drama to keep things lively.

Implications

Where is this leading us? Difficult to say at this moment. Surely Facebook and MySpace won’t drop dead, at least not in the immediate future. The collaboration tools look almost like a real time blog – as I said this is huge. Will normal guys who like to write on the Facebook wall take to Wave? At present there is no fun element in Wave which I am sure is engaging the brains at Google. I for one find it an attractive option because I can do everything from a single platform. No need to login and logout from different sites. When I look into the future, Google Chrome OS looms large in the horizon. This is going to happen in 2010. Having lightweight operating system (free to boot) with a built-in great search algorithm along with collaboration tools (free Office tools) and everything working together is a big plus. I think we must become early adopters of Wave because that’s where the action is going to take place.

Microsoft Bing, Silverlight and online Office collaboration tools

Microsoft is building its own platform for the future web. But what I see as their greatest limitation is lack of openness. With their proprietary systems, it is unlikely that they will succeed in this free for all market. But stranger things have happened. So I won’t write them off – not just now anyway.

Idea no 1: Use social networks to increase reach

Just because you are an ecommerce site does not mean that social networks won’t work for you. After all, social networking sites can provide free advertisement for you. There used to be feeling that Facebook and MySpace only cater to the Y generation. But several studies have shown that it’s not true. Consumers from all age groups are now active on these sites. This means you can unravel and harvest a huge customer base from these sites. I say harvest because they are ripe for picking. You only have to make sure that you hit the right cord. As an icing on the cake , your profile on these social networking sites will give your SEO effort a big push. So go ahead and engage customers on social sites.

Idea no 2: Ask satisfied customers to post a review

Have you ever made a purchase on EBay? For me, reviews, I mean positive reviews have always worked. I bet it does for everyone. EBay and Amazon use reviews quite effectively and it does not cost them a penny. In fact, to be eligible to post a review you must first make a purchase on these sites. Why are reviews so popular? I believe it to be a question of assurance. If someone else has purchased a product and posted a positive review, the product must be good. Same goes for your ecommerce site. If someone has enjoyed transacting through your site, even others may do the same. The lesson is simple- go get as many reviews as possible.

Idea no 3: Use press releases

A press release can do wonders to your image. There are many paid and free sites where you can send your press releases. I would recommend that you go for some popular paid sites .It is worth the effort. You will find that traffic to your site will increase greatly with each press release. Just make sure that your message is clear and you offer something unique and attractive in each of the Press releases. The information should be topical, interesting and grab the attention of readers. In one word, your press release should be compelling.

Idea no 4: Content is king

This should have come at the top of the list. Anyway, have you ever thought about the content on your site? Is it meaningful? Does it convey anything? Do the readers get a sense of fulfillment when they read your stuff? Let’s not forget- content is king. Write something relevant and meaningful in your home page. Focus has to be right- you must let your customers know what you have to offer- without beating around the bush.

Idea no 5: Tell your readers about security level

The most important reason why buyers don’t buy from an ecommerce site is because they are afraid that their passwords and credit card numbers would be stolen. Obviously, you would be doing a great service to yourself if you let people know your SSL security level. For that matter you must enlist all accreditations and certifications. For example “Chosen as the most secure site of the year by Newsweek”, can do wonders to the confidence of your customers. Remember that more than fifty percent of your prospects don’t make a purchase on your site because they are afraid of their data being stolen. I don’t blame them because I would do the same and so would you.

Google Caffeine

Google Caffeine seems to be the new toy the guys out there in the development team are working on. The news did not come as a surprise, since Google is predominantly a search company – I mean out there in Google everything revolves around search. There is much to say about Caffeine both under and over the hood.

I took out the new search engine for a spin (even you can http://www2.sandbox.google.com/ )

Not that there is much to compare .My search results seemed to be more or less the same. I suspect that there is a slight preference for high value websites which I would say is detrimental to many smaller but possibly more relevant guys. Even then there seems to be a better management of spam. According to Matt Cutts , one of the guru’s involved with the makeover of Google search , Caffeine will have more to do with the indexing ( indexing is the process of storing web results ) than spewing out the actual results themselves. With Caffeine, indexing is likely to become faster which in turn means that websites would be found faster when searched. The ultimate goal is to present websites on search results as soon as they are published. But that is going a bit into the future- real time search. Anyway, when we consider that Caffeine is going to be THE SEARCH ENGINE of the future, I will certainly be spending a lot more time tinkering around with it. After all it is bread and butter for us SEO guys.

Coming back to my test drive, there is much to ponder about. SEO professionals are more bothered, as they should be, about the relevance of keywords and the actual search algorithm itself. Probably, I should ,both literally and factually, search for a few more days and more intensely to find out what really has changed and how it effects me directly.

The technology part seems to be quite simple to understand. From what I gather Caffeine seems to be working with the GFS2 storage. The 2 is there to signify second generation. This storage algorithm or technology is the latest from the Google stable and without doubt a mammoth exercise. Google will be relying both on GFS2 and Caffeine for many more years to come. Since GFS2 is a proprietary storage technology we are unlikely to know more about it any time in the near future or anytime at all. The indexing and storage requires many thousands or even millions of processors working in tandem and spewing out data into trillions of megabytes of memory. Add to it the other applications like Gmail and Documents and you get a gigantic storage problem. But here I seem to be straying from Caffeine.

Overall , Caffeine seems to be a development which SEO guys must watch out for and maybe keep our swords sharpened . There is bound to be a lot of upheaval. One thing is for certain- we are looking at some really exciting time ahead, both for Google search and SEO professionals – a Caffeine search with a rush of adrenaline .

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Though I am meandering from one topic to another, there is thread of continuity throughout my posts. Actually the format of the blog compels me to write on things which are topmost in my mind. My other activities no doubt have an impact on my writing. Presently I am consulting for a firm which wants to establish an online presence from scratch. The CEO is taken up with web 2.0 and social networking and wants to jump right into the fray. The Chairman is more circumspect ( after all, he is the one who started the business from scratch ) and also most skeptical. Online presence to him is a waste of money. Other management staff hold their opinion and don’t want to air their views. This is a typical scenario which I encounter often. The main issue here is not whether internet presence is good or bad or meaningless. The idea is to create more opportunities and to earn more income. How to do this using clear processes and systems is the challenge.

Well designed and focused website

Beginning of everything is the word. In internet, a website is the center of the universe. Your website is a billboard on the internet highway. People driving along this great freeway tend to like those websites which make sense. This means you must provide relevant content on your website. I cannot overemphasize the fact that your website must be meaningful. The focus should be clear and the visitors must know what to expect once they click on the link leading to your most important online asset – your website. In fact, the time spent on creating a website should far exceed any other activity. User experience combined with excellent content would automatically make your website a contender for top slot on search engines. After all search algorithms pay respect to content and give higher weight age to this factor.

Keyword optimization

This is a tricky issue. Like the question of which came first- egg or the hen? Ideally, website design should incorporate SEO organically rather than undertaking SEO activity after completing website design. But I have found that web designer have poor SEO skills, though many claim expertise in this field. Resolving this problem requires a more thorough approach which involves processes and systems. Unfortunately, small web designers lack process design skills as well. Search engine spiders index websites based on different criteria. One of them is Title and other html tags. Incorporating them at a later date after creating the website should be avoided.

Participating in groups on social sites

Once the website is ready you must create links to it through social networking sites. Finding peer groups is quite simple and if you have quality content on your site there should be no problem in attracting traffic to it. Since links are important for search engines, this activity will certainly help in your ranking. When should you submit your website to search engines for indexing? Some say we should do it as early as possible. In my opinion, it is better to wait and create a suitable ecosystem with appropriate links and some sort of traffic before trying to find a place on search engine results. This organic growth is obviously going to take some time and will certainly not be acceptable to your clients. You have to find a middle path which will satisfy both your client and yet meet the need of their website.

Establishing yourself as an expert

People would like to read your stuff if you are an expert in the field. Establishing yourself as an expert is once again a process. One of the tools which you can effectively use is to write articles on the subject and submit them to article directories. If others like what you have written, they would carry them on their websites thus creating links to your site. Over a period of time, you would be automatically be considered as an expert. This can help drive traffic to your site. The additional benefit is that links would help in bettering your search engine ranking.

Creating a blog is another great way to establish yourself as an expert. Since setting up blogs is free , this can be a great way to achieve your goal. I have known some people who have several blogs which they write under different names. But this strategy can be strenuous unless you get ghostwriters to write for you.

I am sure most of you would agree that there is no short cut to success. This holds true for your online presence. It is best to start at the beginning, which is creating your website and take it up from there. The online ecosystem you create will ensure your success.

Let us admit that most of what we call SEO is targeted at Google search engine. And why not? After all over seventy percent of searches are conducted through Google. In fact, the word googling has been accepted as a phrase. How many times have you heard people saying “Google it ”. This supreme supremacy has not come about by chance. Google started as a pure play search engine and continues to be passionately driven by search. It is a thought leader in search technology and has most of the internet population under its thrall. No doubt many of us spend hours learning about Google. It is a fascinating world which can consume your time and sometimes become an obsession and an addiction. Sometimes I wonder if the time spent on reading about Google is worth it, but then fortunately it is part of my so called job. I will call it a hobby masquerading as a job.

But let me turn to more mundane and possibly rewarding things other than meandering away with stray thoughts. I will spend my time explaining some interesting terms . First of all I would like to get my readers to click on this link http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/ . This is probably the best place to start learning about SEO and also the last authoritative words straight from the proverbial horse’s mouth.

Crawling

The first thing which any search engine has to do is index or collect information about websites. This is a complex process since many thousands of sites are added , some hundreds of thousands modified , links created and dead links left scattered all over the internet. The googlebot which is also called a bot or spider crawls all over the internet looking for additions and modifications ,finally indexing them for use by the Google search engine. Googlebot uses sitemaps extensively to index websites and this means you must create a sitemap if you want to get indexed ( get all your web pages indexed ). I feel an understanding of the process is important since we come to realize the importance of certain procedures which we may not appreciate otherwise.

Indexing

The next process is called indexing. Googlebots crawl through websites and index the web pages. While indexing , Google says “ In addition, we process information included in key content tags and attributes, such as Title tags and ALT attributes. Googlebot can process many, but not all, content types. For example, we cannot process the content of some rich media files or dynamic pages.” Can you now associate the Title tag with SEO? Your Title tag should contain the keyword you are interested in. The keyword should be placed right in the beginning of the Title tag ,for obvious reasons. I will take up indexing in more detail in a later post. Suffice to say now that indexing process encompasses Title tags and ALT attributes , which is why they are important.

Serving results

The last part of the search jigsaw puzzle is the actual search process. Ever wonder how search engines throw up results involving millions of sites in a few seconds? When you type in the query or search word, the search engine goes through the indexed pages and gives appropriate results. This also means that information provided by search engines is actually dated and not real time . For example ,it took Google more than a few hours to provide information about Michael Jackson’s death. I suspect it was a manual intervention on the part of Google which resulted in such quick indexing because it was a huge event . Normally, it will take days for your website to be indexed and presented by search engines. This leads us to an important question- Is it possible to develop technology which will work on real time basis? Many research groups are working on this problem and we may soon find search engines which are much faster and more accurate.

To conclude this post I wish to emphasize the following:

1. Search engine crawlers search through the internet and use sitemaps to access new sites. Sitemaps are therefore important.
2. Indexing is a process by which search engines collect and store information about web pages. Title tags and ALT attributes play an important role in the process. You must pay particular attention to these if you want good search engine ranking.
3. Results provided by search engines are from the index . Information is therefore dated and historical rather than real time. If you don’t find changes made to your website reflected immediately on search engines you must not be surprised.

There used to be a time not too long ago when a website consisted of pure html pages. Things were pretty simple both for designers and search engines. But the requirement of some nifty images, video and multimedia could not be met by these html pages. Around a few years back flash made its appearance. Macromedia (now purchased by Adobe) made a splash with flash. But this was the beginning of woes for SEO guys like me. During those days, I remember creating a pure flash site for an advertising agency. Continued absence from search engines was baffling to me till I realized that search spiders don’t take kindly to flash. I know the tech guys out there reading this post must be laughing their heads off, but let me assure you that not many knew that pure play flash sites were a no-no for SEO purposes. The reason was links. Since flash does not support html-like links, search spiders could not index the pages. This meant that search engines did not display these sites.

Lately client-side applications like AJAX and Javascript don’t support links which search bots can follow. Does it mean that we cannot use these software? Obviously not. In that case most of the Google applications would be discarded since they are based on AJAX. Google mashups like Google maps are one example of an AJAX based application. The solution is rather simple – sitemap. With sitemaps you can avoid the problems and issues which arise from use of flash, Javascript and AJAX. Use of sitemaps is unavoidable and it is better to understand sitemaps and incorporate them on your website than ignoring them.

Even if a part of your website is made up of flash or Ajax it is advisable to go for sitemaps. You can never be sure if all your web pages have been indexed if you don’t have a sitemap. Mostly search engines only index a part of your website which is not good for SEO.

Creating sitemaps is as simple as creating html pages. In fact you don’t need to know coding or software programming to incorporate sitemaps in a website. Many tools like Adobe Dreamweaver and Microsoft Publisher have inbuilt tools to create sitemaps on the click of a button. There are many free tools on the internet which can do the job as well. Once you have created a sitemap you can submit it directly to search engines. The sitemap provides a complete list of web pages and the links which can be easily accessed by the search spider. This will lead to quicker indexing and also ensure that all your web pages are indexed.

The good part about sitemaps is that the underlying protocol has been accepted by major search engines like Google, Yahoo, MSN and ask.com. This means that you can submit your website sitemap to all these search engines simultaneously without making specific changes. Once you submit the sitemaps you can be sure that your website will be indexed much faster than by submitting your website. Additionally, your entire site would get indexed in the process.

Sitemaps are a must for efficient SEO and not there merely for ornamental purposes. Another thing which you must remember is that creating sitemaps is not a manual process. You must not attempt to create sitemap physically. You must use specific tools which will map your website and automatically create sitemaps. Why I am writing this is because of the confusion which I myself had in my mind (That was a few years back, so I am not ashamed to confess this now). Google sitemaps is a fantastic application which can be accessed through Google webmaster tool. I will discuss the details in my next post.

Now you know why sitemaps are critical for SEO purposes. Another reason why I would like to provide sitemaps is for navigation purposes. Users can view the sitemap and directly reach the web pages which they are interested in. Sometimes, navigating websites can get quite frustrating especially when the site is huge with many pages. With sitemaps users can find what they want faster and with ease.

Therefore sitemaps are important both for SEO and for navigation. This post would have certainly clarified some of the doubts SEO guys would have had about this subject. It will also dispel the belief that sitemaps are too technical to be approached by non techies. In my next post I will take up this topic and discuss some more aspects of sitemap creation and its relevance.

It is high time we move from amateur SEO to some real professional stuff. Most of the advice which you hear from SEO experts boils down to the same thing said in different words. But there are some techniques which are never discussed probably because they have never been used by the so called experts. Use of Google analytic is probably one such tool which differentiates the boys from the men. Analyzing traffic to your website and creating suitable web interfaces to maximize ROI is a major part of Web master job. As I mentioned in my last post understanding the mind of your visitor and creating suitable interactive web pages is more important than understanding the technology. Google analytics is for the grownups ,those who know the business of website.

I have used Google analytics effectively for many of my clients and can say with authority that it helps increasing traffic – sometimes by a percentage , sometimes by leaps and bounds. The beautiful part is that Google analytics helps in sewing up a whole lot of Google application and tools like Google AdWords , AdSense and PPC campaigns.

The dashboard feature of Google analytics is particularly fascinating since you can monitor aspects of your website which you consider most important. Presentation can be tailored for different roles. A CEO would like to know about the overall performance of a website. At the same time people from web design would like to drill down and analyze the click through patterns to modify their interface for increasing traffic and revenue. Geographical indicators give detailed information on the different user and preferences across the globe. One can even drill down to an individual visitor and identify the IP address. At the same time the privacy of the visitor is maintained and privacy concerns are amply protected.

Google analytics gives the bigger picture as well as drills down to the minutest detail. You can analyze the traffic coming from various sources. The keywords which drive traffic to your website can be thoroughly studied and SEO tactics refined and corrective measures taken.

Google analytics provides complete campaign tracking capabilities. You have the power to track various kinds of campaign and evaluate their effectives. This includes banner ad campaigns , advertisements and even email marketing.  I just cannot explain in words how easy to use and fantastic this tool can be. The resulting revenue gain can be tremendous and most of all, it gives a thrill to me when tweaking one small aspect of a website results in a quantum leap in traffic. All this can be accomplished with a simple user friendly interface requiring only common sense to navigate and use.

The entry points and exits of visitors can be effectively monitored using Google analytics. In fact, the time spent on the web site by each of the visitors can be seen giving a hint of what is important for them. Comparison of various metrics on a time scale provides data about the success /failure rate due to changes made on the website. Advertisement campaigns can therefore be fine tuned with this tool. One of the features which I found relevant was the tracking of visitors beginning with entry to website from keyword search , their movement within the site and their eventual exit. We can analyze the keywords which lead to fulfillment and those which are least rewarding. In fact you can use Google analytics for many purposes depending on your appetite for analysis and power to digest data.

The benchmarking feature can provide an insight to how your website is performing in comparison to others from the same industry. As I mentioned earlier, knowing your competitors is more important than anything else. As we compare our stats with others ,the chinks in our armor would get exposed . As someone has well said, SEO is a game in which we have to topple the website on top of us to come up tops. Benchmarking exposes us to tactics which are employed by our competitors and provides an opportunity for us to exploit their weaknesses.

Overall, Google analytics exposes us to a whole new and fascinating world of web metrics. The only danger is when we are too taken up with the numbers and spend all our time analyzing them rather than take positive steps to move ahead. We must avoid this paralysis in analysis scenario. Still Google analytics can be a whole lot more addictive than video games. It gives more thrill and a greater high.

SEO is as much about what you do as knowing what’ going on. This monitoring and webmetrics part of your website is perhaps the most critical part of SEO and also the most neglected. In my view a SEO exercise is incomplete without taking this part into active consideration. Most of us know that the algorithm used by search engines is a closely held secret, so much so that even the insiders don’t know exactly how it works. But, the intention of Google and other guys is not to complicate and obfuscate the search process but to ensure that users, by which I mean those who conduct actual search, get what they are searching for. And there are hints and detailed guides if you only care to open your eyes and listen (pun intended). What then are the five critical elements of web monitoring?

Fixing un-crawl able web pages

Sometimes we optimize our sites beautifully but are frustrated by the results. In most cases the Googlebot is unable to crawl through some of your pages. But how are you to know this? Simple actually. The Google webmaster tools are very handy when it comes to analyzing problems with your web pages. This simple diagnostic tool (which is a free download and takes seconds to install) tells you why Googlebot is unable to crawl through your site. With this data you can then make necessary changes to your web pages and …….. bravo ,you find light at end of the tunnel.

Indexing stats

I cannot overemphasize the importance of indexing stats. Many a times we may be violating some of the rules of Google search engine and may be penalized for it by not showing up in search results. You may never know what’s going on unless you have Google webmaster tools. Google are a nice bunch of guys and are eager to let us know why they are penalizing you. This gives you ample opportunity to correct the mistakes and resubmit the pages for reindexing. Let me tell you that this has saved many of my clients from doom. There is nothing wrong with making mistakes – everyone makes them. But not understanding the dynamics of SEO is certainly a crime. You must know how to get out of problems quickly .That’s the only way you will learn.

Link data

Another important stats which you would like to see. There are many tools available out there which can give you the stats. But the Google tool is way ahead . It gives you a list of links, external and internal. You can then analyze who is linking to you and what impact they have on your SEO activity. Visitor behavior can better be understood from analyzing this data. Obviously you cannot do much about external links but tweaking internal pages and creating helpful user friendly links from within the site can result in more traffic to your site.

Top queries

As I mentioned earlier, Google guys want to help webmasters tune up their site – Google helps those who want to help themselves. Are you interested in the statistics of how and why visitors visit your website? What are the search words and queries which bring you that much needed traffic? I personally would give my soul to know how my user reaches me. I would say that people who are not interested in user behavior and analysis will never become SEO specialists. The entire gamut of SEO is dependent on this single factor- what do visitors really want? This tool is really simple to use and does not require a degree in rocket science. In fact less nerdy you are the better. That’s what I always say- people skills are still critical when it comes to SEO, for technology we have Google.

Page analysis

This is another aspect of analyzing user behavior. Other sites link to yours using some specific words which you can gather from using this tool. Analyzing your competitors site makes sense since you learn from it. This is called reverse engineering. The Japanese have excelled in this art and have defeated American car makers at their own game. Sony reverse engineered the best of US technology and now owns more than half the tech companies or maybe more. What are your rivals doing? You can get some of the answers by using this tool.

Gathering facts and figures about your website is an involved process. Some websites hire specialists to track and monitor theirs as well as competitor websites. Google webmaster tool is only the tip of the diagnostic process. Not knowing what’s happening behind the scene is not only ignorance but a SEO crime.

Some time back I was consulting for a website for optimization. As it often happens we learn more from our clients while consulting. In this case I was profoundly impressed with their home grown SEO techniques. Not that they are flawless but nevertheless important techniques which you can try with variations.

Multiple blogs to support your website

This is a fantastic way to build links to your main website. There are many free blogging sites and setting up a blog is easy and fun. Search engines do not differentiate between paid blogging sites and free sites. So, where is the catch? You need content to fill into these blogs and that’s where you are likely to hit a wall. The best way is to engage freelance writers who can write decently. This can cost a bit and that’s why I call it strong arm SEO tactics. What you should do is calculate the cost of the entire process. I would say that you need at least five blogs to be effective. Making one blog entry a day for each of the blogs would work well. One major issue is the time frame. How long should you continue feeding your blogs to achieve critical mass? What happen once you stop making blog entries? This is something which needs some research. Probably, you can space out the blog posts after some time so that the blogs are alive and attract search engines thereby keeping the links alive.

Another issue which you need to consider is the human factor. Are these blogs only meant for search engines? Since you are providing links back to your main site, it would be ideal if you have something interesting to say on these blogs as well. By doing this you can divert real traffic to your site.

Multiple sister sites to link to your main website

This works the same way as the blogs .But here you have to pay and register the site and then get it developed. Obviously this is much more costly than setting up a blog. I was actually shocked when my client who I mentioned earlier told me that they have 500 sister websites to feed their main site. Now this is sheer brute force and cost a packet. What about creating several landing pages with marketing material? The problem here is that search engines give least weightage to sites with low content and the links will be of low value. But more than 10 websites would add up to considerable optimization even if individual contribution is low. By optimizing your main site and then adding sister sites would eventually lead to better search engine ranking. Ideally sister sites should have multiple pages with adequate content. If you are selling a product, every sister site may even act as an affiliate. The added advantage is that visitors to the sites would think of you as a big player. By registering with Clickbank , you can create a complete affiliate ecosystem which would attract search engines like a magnet. The process of creating sister websites needs some thought and perseverance. You really don’t need 500 sites to get there on top of the first page.

Chain link building

Another variation of link building is chain links. For example if you have ten sister sites, you can chain link them in a way that each preceding site links to the next in a chain. This means there would not be any reciprocal links. Search engines would therefore not nullify the effect of these links. But doing this would mean one effective link to the main site. One can try and include three websites in a chain with many such clusters, all having the main site. Remember what I mentioned at the beginning of the post. These are strong arm tactics which may cost a lot of money and initiative. Then why am I recommending this? Sometime competition for some keywords is so fierce that normal ways do not work. This is where you must resort to brute force. In such cases even small things matter. Time is another big constraint if you want to build organic growth. Unfortunately not everyone has the patience to wait.

You must appreciate that search engines have to crawl through billions of pages. Any changes you make to the website would probably take a while before taking effect. Some clients just don’t want to wait – they want results yesterday. When cost is not the main criteria, one can resort to the strong arm tactics I have mentioned in this post. By this you can quickly build up critical mass. You can always follow traditional methods as you go along. With time your effort on maintaining sister sites and blogs can be reduced as your other SEO techniques take a firm hold.